Surveillance video of FBI informant Solomon Dwek talking politics, money and deals with Harold 'Bud' DemellierIn this surveillance video excerpt, FBI informant Solomon Dwek can be seen talking with Harold 'Bud' Demellier about politics, money and making deals. Dwek can be seen in this video talking with Demellier about $20,000 that he gave him. Demellier is a key Democratic strategist who ran Jersey City Mayor Healy's 2009 re-election campaign. Dwek also speaks with Tom Fricchione, a former Jersey City councilman who was tied to Dwek in other videos but never charged. Fricchione died in Dec. 2009.

A surveillance video that premiered on NJ.com's website Sunday is a window into how Hudson County insiders can work to make a little lucre on the side to supplement the paychecks provided them by Hudson County's hard-pressed taxpayers.

The surveillance footage is from a hidden camera worn by Solomon Dwek, the infamous federal informant utilized by the U.S. Attorney's Office to bring down a bevy of Hudson County politicians and associates as well as a ring of rabbis who allegedly trafficked in human organs.

The video shows Hudson County's $127,800-a-year director of Roads and Public Property, Harold "Bud" Demellier, and former Jersey City councilman Tom Fricchione discussing ways to grease the wheels for a bogus Jersey City development Dwek was proposing for Garfield Avenue.

Demellier, the campaign manager for Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy at the time of the meeting, has acknowledged that Dwek paid him $20,000 cash for "consultant" work.

Fricchione, who died in 2009 and was on various county payrolls at the time the video was recorded, can be heard talking at the meeting, which was held in Demellier's office at the Hudson County Administration Building.

Demellier has not been charged with any crimes in the Operation Bid Rig III sting, which has taken down a former Hoboken mayor, a former Jersey City deputy mayor, a former Jersey City City Council president, several candidates for office, and a gaggle of other political figures and municipal employees.

The video illustrates how easy it is for some officials entrusted with running and operating government to be courted by someone who shows up with cash.

Demellier passed himself off to Dwek, who used the alias David Esenbach, as a "consultant," a political fixer with connections and a willingness to peddle influence.
Demellier says he did nothing wrong -- or at least nothing sufficiently illegal to get himself indicted by the U.S. attorney. Whether he'll be indicted in the court of public opinion remains to be seen.

I've watched Bud, as Demellier is usually referred to, since he surfaced during the first administration of former Jersey City Mayor Gerald McCann, who appointed him, to among other things, the Jersey City Public Library Board.

Demellier, with McCann's backing, became board chairman of the library, an act that led to decades of controversy.

Once, Bud and the board fired the library director after adjourning its meeting. The former director was reappointed after suing the library board.

Earl Morgan of Morgan's Corner

But Demellier's political career continued to flourish, switching political sides and allegiances as easily as a chameleon changes colors.

Bud knows how the game is played and how to get paid for his political connections.